GLADSTONIAN TRIBUTES TO LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.
wHAT could conceivably have seemed more unlikely in 1886 than that, in ten years' time, an eminent Treasury official, most ardently attached to the Treasury principles and practice of Mr. Gladstone, should have com- posed a tribute to the memory of Lord Randolph Churchill as an administrator ? That, however, is what ha- happened, and even more, for Sir Algernon West's articl, in the October number of the Nineteenth Century amounts to something like a collective testimony to Lord Randolph's commanding gifts in the management of public business, and to his singular personal charm, from those who have been Mr. Gladstone's right-hand men in the permanen*, Civil Service. In its pages Sir Algernon himself, Sir Arthur Godley, and Lord Welby vie with one another in the emphasis with which they give expression to their admiration, not only for the brilliancy but for the solidity of the powers shown in the highest office by a man whose accession to power as "a serious Minister of the Crown" the whole body of "old and staid officials, educated in the school of Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Sir Stafford Northcote," had regarded as "an impossibility." Thus Sir Arthur Godley, writing as Under-Secretary for India at the time of Lord Randolph's short tenure of the Secretaryship of State, says :—" He was, as every one knows, exceedingly able, quick, and clear- sighted. Besides this he was very industrious, very energetic and decided when once his mind was made up, and remarkably skilful in the art of ' devolution,' by which I mean the art of getting the full amount of help out of his subordinates. He knew at once whether to take up a question or to leave it to others. If he took it up he made himself completely master of it ; if he left it alone he put entire confidence in those to whom he left it, and endorsed their opinion without hesitation Few high officials can have been his superiors, or indeed his equals, in the art of getting things done." That is exceedingly high praise from a most competent judge, and considering that the duties of the Secretary of State fr India are, as Sir A. Godley rather quaintly puts it. "somewhat complicated by his relations with the Council," and that the Government in which Lord Randolph was Indian Secretary was only in office about six months, it would be difficult to resist the conclusion that in that brief period he evinced the possession of something amounting to administrative genius, at any rate from the interior point of view. It is hardly claimed that the evidence before us proves him to have been a great Indian statesman. Important measures, such as the annexation of Burmah, were no doubt carried out during his Secretaryship. But with Lord Dufferin at Calcutta there is no reason to suppose that Lord Randolph Churchill's part in that transaction amounted to more than intelligent and sympathetic acquiescence in a policy the determining causes of which had been long maturing.
On the other hand, the formation of the Indian Midland Railway, which, Sir Algernon West says, " was carried out by Lord Randolph against considerable opposition," is precisely a fruit of his term of office which deserves to be placed in large measure to his personal credit. But valuable as that measure was, it could not be described as manifesting more than excellent intelligence and firmness of purpose within a limited sphere. We do not say that he might not have developed into an Indian statesman of the first rank, but only that he had not the quantity or quality of opportunity needed for proving his possession of the qualities needed for such a position.
As to Lord Randolph's work at the Treasury, the evidence as to his possession of unusual grasp of mind and keenness of vision, as well as of power to get the best work out of subordinates, is fully as clear and decisive as in the case of his tenure of the Indian Secretaryship. Sir A. West, then Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, and Lord Welby, then Secretary to the Treasury, bear testimony which on such points is absolutely beyond challenge. Both of them were strongly prejudiced against their new chief in the summer of 1886, and both of them were not only vanquished by his perfect candour and free- Such evidences of Lord Randolph Churchill's powers as an administrator cannot be ignored. They are most im- pressive, but to our mind they deepen the sadness which thoughtful Englishmen must feel at that want of moral ballast and those lamentable defects of taste and good feeling which made his influence on politics during the years through which he fought his way to power distinctly deteriorating to the quality of public life. It is some- thing to know that he was capable of repenting for bitter words which he found to have been wanting in justification. Mr. Gladstone and his friends may readily forget the wounds he caused to them. But it is not easy to forget the bad example which his ill-directed brilliancy set to politicians at large. Nor did the method of his leaving office illustrate sound judgment, even if it can be justified on grounds of political morality. A longer life might have given him scope to redeem his errors, and we can at least say that Sir A. West's article deepens the regret that that scope was not afforded to him. That the resignation was not sprung as a surprise on Lord Salisbury and his colleagues may be acknowledged ; as also that Lord Ran- dolph had a sincere love of economy in the public service, which he showed wisely and independently by abolishing the old-standing Secret Service grant of £10,000 a year to the Secretary of the Treasury. But as Sir A. West acknowledges, the "fatal letter" from Windsor, which was accepted by Lord Salisbury as a virtual resignation, really offered no other alternative except the writer's "absolute supremacy " in the Cabinet. And while doing so it also, we may add, indicated very much the kind of atti- tude towards questions of national defence where economy was in question, which has been exhibited in a letter pub- lished a few months back from Mr. Gladstone on the subject of the present expenditure on the Navy. Indeed, it went further. For Lord Randolph's allusion in the Windsor letter to the possibility of the modification "or abandonment " of intended expenditure on fortifications and guns was so extraordinarily casual, not to say contemptuous, in its tone, that it is hard to believe that his judgment could ever have become really that of a first-class statesman on affairs of first-class moment. His intentions, as we freely admit, might often have led him to steer a good course, but if he had lived to return to office, it must have been long before he could have been completely trusted not to make disastrous mistakes of head, while his treatment of Sir Stafford Northcote created a bitter feeling of it- security as to his liability — notwithstanding many generous impulses—to grave faults of heart. Still, Sir Algernon West's article does deepen the tragedy of a death which left no opportunity for the redemption of errors, and the building up of a great reputation by a public man of singularly varied gifts and many charms, who had shown himself often well able to unlearn and to learn.
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